strawberry + blackberry freezer jam

Swanton Berry Farms

Nico picking blackberries

Nico, Mémé, & I went strawberry + blackberry picking at Swanton Berry Farms (inbetween Davenport and Pescadero along Highway 1) last Friday. Nico was covered in berry juice and his clothes were tie-dyed red by the end, but we had such a good time! I surely didn't want the berries to go to waste, so I decided to make some jam! As Jesse is in China, I decided to make the no-cook kind of jam, freezer jam, and to use instant pectin -- the directions say it takes 30 minutes.




First, we went to Walmart to purchase the freezer jam materials. Ball instant pectin, and Ball plastic freezer jam jars (1/2 pint size). The plastic jars were cheap!

1/2 pint plastic freezer jars + instant pectin

I had read some reviews on the Ball instant pectin, and it seems that there were a lot of unsatisfied customers out there. Also, I read that freezer jam has a softer set than cooked jam. I decided to go ahead with using the instant pectin anyway, since heating 'normal' pectin up with water was one extra step that I might not have time for.

washed strawberries

washed blackberries

before pulsing strawberries

after 5 pulses

To prep the berries, I rinsed them in bowls of water, and cut off the green tops off the strawberries. I cut most of the strawberries in half, but left some of the really small ones uncut. I have a small little counter top food processor, and had to cut the berries in batches. Strawberries + blackberries got about 5 pulses each, as to avoid pulverizing the berries and getting berry soup.





I was worried I wouldn't have enough berries, but fortunately after mixing the straw- & black- berries, I had 2.5 cups of cut berries, which is exactly what the recipe (on the side of the plastic freezer jar box) called for.

strawberry + blackberry mixture

After that I mixed instant pectin in with the sugar in a glass bowl, using a fork. The recipe called for 1 cup of sugar, but I probably used ~10% LESS sugar. 1 cup of sugar for 2.5 cups of berries seemed like a lot of sugar, but I didn't want to add less and potentially mess up the pectin/sugar ratio and jeopardize the jam not 'setting'.

Then I poured the sugar mixture slowly into the berry mixture and mixed with a rubber spatula.

pouring sugar/pectin into fruit mixture

After 3 minutes, it looked like this:

ready to go!

Finally, I used a ladle to pour the berry/sugar/pectin mixture into the freezer jars. I thought I had bought a canning funnel to make this step easier, but Nico, being two weeks away from two years old, was playing with the funnel as a "hat" and I think it never made it out of Walmart. There is a "fill line" that I didn't fill over, which is a 1/2 inch from the top -- to allow for the berry jam to expand.

ladeling the jam into the jars

I capped the jam, let it sit for 30 minutes at room temperature, and hope that it 'set'. After 30 minutes it didn't seems especially "jellified" but this is my first time making any type of jam, so I don't know. I read online that you can put the jam in the refrigerator and it will help set the jam. So I plan on leaving the jams in the fridge for about 5 hours, then transfer to the freezer.

Worst case scenario, we have 3 half-pint sized YUMMY pancake and/or ice cream sauce.

strawberry + blackberry freezer jam!

Recipe from the back of the Ball Freezer Jar box, and how I followed it:

INGREDIENTS

2.5 cups crushed berries (1.5 cups strawberries + 1 cup blackberries)

1 cup granulated sugar (~10% less)

3 TB Ball Instant Pectin

PREPARATION

1. stir sugar and pectin in a bowl

2. add berries & stir 3 minutes

3. ladle the jam into clean jars to the fill line. Attach lids. :et stand until thickened, about 30 minutes.

4. serve immediately, refrigerate, or freeze.